Roora
by Aelibia
Summary: Kisame and Sakura. "It could be said plain and simply that everyone was considering calling the whole thing off."
1. The Munyai

**A/N:** If you want clarification on any of this, you'll have to Google it. Look for 'Zimbabwe – "The Function of Roora"'

* * *

It could be said plain and simply that everyone was considering calling the whole thing off, even Kisame and Sakura. But Kisame was in too deep, and Sakura would never let the guys back out now. A congregation had assembled in the living room of the nearest Benefactor to The Cause in event of The Emergency, and so far, Kisame, Tobi, Deidara and Hidan had showed up. Zetsu apparently didn't mind letting his house become a temporary meeting spot, provided he had no affiliation with the plans. The first inklings he had of the _rumors_ he heard told him in big, bold letters to go far, far away, besides.

Itachi had disappeared on some strange mission the night before the conference gathered, but, wisely, no one felt like asking any questions, and Kakuzu just seemed to morph in and out of the meeting area at regular intervals. Sakura adamantly refused to show up for the meeting, and mentioned flippantly over her shoulder that she just might follow Itachi after "if this thing gets any more nuts than it is right now, for crying out loud, Kisame." She then announced that Kisame would have to deal with this all by his manly lonesome.

It was tradition, after all, on her mother's side of the family, and they wouldn't have it any other way. It was also natural for Kisame to employ the help of close friends, however, she said, so Kisame had drafted as many as possible to aid him in his struggle. Well, if you wanted to _call_ them friends.

Zetsu's living room was a nice one as far as living rooms of the hunted and criminal went. There was a couch, a loveseat, a table, a bookcase, and a beanbag chair, of which he claimed ignorance of its origins. The consensus, with much snickering, left Kisame with the loveseat and the rest of the furniture up for grabs. From his unceremonious place on the carpet, Hidan decided to start things off, as usual.

"So what the hell are we doing again? All I got was some stupid note saying I _had_ to get here as fast as I can, and so I come here and no one tells me anything for three days. _Three days._ If _someone_ doesn't cough up some information, me and the stitch boy are so out of here, seriously."

Kisame raised a hand for silence, pleasantly surprised when he actually received it in response. He sighed.

"Well, I don't know how many of you know this, but Sakura and I were going to get married."

"What, _you_ got her before _I_ did? She must've been drunk, yeah. _Indecently_ drunk."

Kisame glared. "Well, sucks to be you. I guess I'm just a better person." Deidara scoffed but turned away, playing with a chunk of clay as he scooted to a different position on the couch.

"Can I come to the wedding, Kisame?"

Blinking at Tobi, Kisame looked sheepish as he scratched behind his ear. "Well, see, that's just it. There _is_ no wedding."

"No fucking wedding? That is the most heathenish sh—"

"No, Hidan, just let me—"

"Don't fucking interrupt me! That is so disrespectful to think you can just waltz off with her body without properly joining to her. I knew I should've—"

"_Hidan."_

"Tobi doesn't think this is a good idea, Kisame. Sakura's a nice girl, I mean, she kind of deserves a wedding…"

"Tobi, I—"

"Jeez, Kisame. You really need to learn some manners, yeah. See, if she'd have gotten to know _me_ better, we would've had a _real_ wedding, with real—"

"No. If you'll just let me—"

"Sweet Jashin in heaven. Did you fucking _impregnate_ the damn woman? Look, if this is some sort of shotgun wedding fucking affair, I'm out the door right now. That is a _sin,_ and you are _the_ most—"

"Everyone stop it, just for a second while I explain!" Kisame thundered.

"This better be good, fish boy."

Kisame glared again. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

"…Okay. I asked Sakura if she wanted to marry me, and she said yes. There was no violence involved. There wasn't even any sex. Well…not on that particular day."

"You little—behind our backs the whole—?"

_Sakura cried out, clenching her teeth and gripping the edge of the rug as she vainly struggled to hold in a scream. Kisame braced his right hand against some wonderfully embroidered flowers above Sakura's left shoulder and gripped her hip with his other hand, breaths coming out ragged and fast as he buried his face in the crook of her shoulder, trying to find any leverage at all to help him keep up a steady rhythm. He gasped and bit lightly into her shoulder as Sakura reached a hand down between them to—_

"Kisame!"

"Uh…yes! Actually, yes. And shut up while I finish. It gets better, I promise."

Tobi glared. No one noticed, and, frankly, no one gave a damn. Kisame took a deep breath, and sat up straighter in his chair.

"Okay, so we were going to get married, and everything's great. We go over to her parents' house in Konoha and her dad's there, and he is absolutely thrilled. I mean, she was living over there for far too long anyway, plus it's common knowledge what a beefcake I am."

Deidara snorted.

"I said shut _up._ Anyway, we were having tea, then the mom comes in waving this hoe around and flinging dirt all over the kitchen, screaming about how the tradition was broken, and she was going to chase me out or hack me to pieces and beat her ungrateful bitch of a daughter or something. It was hard to tell since I was trying to get a worm out of my tea. That was some good tea. So after Sakura dragged me out of the kitchen and her dad got the mom in a headlock, she took the liberty of explaining to me what was going on as she tried to get the grass out of her hair."

"She was waving _what_ around?"

"Deidara, be quiet. Tobi can't hear."

"Fucking seriously. You're giving everyone a headache."

"…Apparently her mother comes from a rural area in an African country. And it looks like I forgot to pay the roora. I didn't even send one of you guys to yell at the family or anything."

The others exchanged worrisome glances as Kisame narrowed his eyes and glanced up at the ceiling, seemingly lost in thought. Deidara leaned forward on his knees.

"What are you _talking_ about, Kisame?"

"The roora! The tradition! There will be no wedding, only the roora. Only if we do it right, though. The mother refuses to let Sakura out of the house. Has for the last hour or so, whenever it was Sakura left. The roora is a Shona tradition of giving a payment to the bride's family to complete the marriage in binding ceremony."

"So it's a bride price, then." Kisame glanced toward the source of the voice, surprised to see Kakuzu leaning against the wall in front of the loveseat.

"No, no. Sakura said it wasn't like that at all, it's—when did you get here, anyway?"

Kakuzu turned away and walked to face the living room door behind him, hands in his pockets.

"I was just stepping in," he murmured quietly, "I'm not involved here."

"Well, it'd be great if you could—"

"No."

Kisame closed his eyes and leaned back, allowing the chair to engulf him in a sea of leather and stuffing. "Fine. I'll just have to work with what I have. So to continue, the roora is simply a completion of the marriage, and symbolizes the man's commitment to his wife. That's why I almost got chased out with a gardening tool. Her mother thought I was making a bad impression. And the yelling ordeal is the most important part of the courtship. It signifies that we're getting serious. The proper way is to send a close friend or relative to announce it specifically, and that's why I wanted your help. It's kind of annoying, but there's no other way."

"I agree, yeah. I could be doing other things right now, but…I just feel like being nice today."

"_Other_ things? What the fuck do you mean, _'other things?'_ Like going out for a leisurely stroll, blowing up a few towns, raping a few ten-year-old girls? 'Other things' like _that,_ Mr. Blond Bombshell?"

"I was talking about art, you nutcase. Something you wouldn't understand."

"That's because I know art isn't going out and blowing shit up."

"See? That proves my point."

Kisame and Tobi fell silent, favoring observing the two men argue than think about what troubles lay ahead. Tobi slowly turned to Kisame and folded his hands in his lap, tilting his head to the side, giving Kisame the impression that if he took of the mask he would be looking into the face of a lawyer with a loophole.

"Kisame? What can Tobi do to help?"

Kisame grinned horribly and leaned towards Tobi. "Oh, I think I'll be needing Hidan for this first thing. He'll like it. It involves yelling, and pain. Lots of pain. Thank God, the son-in-law doesn't have to go through it, or I would've just run off with her."

Tobi pressed his hands on his thighs and leaned forward as well to peer curiously at the delighted shark man. "What are we going to do?"

"Listen closely. We can plan this all out and then send him out there with an offer he can't refuse. He'll forgive us _eventually."_

"I—Tobi's not sure if he likes the sound of that."

"Trust me. There's no way even _he_ can screw this up."

* * *

As Hidan lifted the hem of his Akatsuki robe out of mud range, he was seriously rethinking this whole damn thing. Seriously.

"Fucking asses," he snarled as he trudged towards Konoha. "I knew they all hated me. Why do _I_ get this job?" Then he blinked, and his face brightened momentarily. "Well, at least I'll be getting free food. Kisame said Sakura's dad gives out free food to anyone who can prove that they're a Jashinist. Good thing I got this rosary before I left the convention."

Feeling somewhat better, Hidan stopped and peered ahead at an approaching fork in the road.

"Okay, this is the damn fork…left." He hoped it was the left side, anyway. It was getting dark, and small children wandering around tended to raise hell if they saw him coming their way. A small cottage in his field of vision dissipated all disregards, however, as he recognized the house from Kisame's descriptions. Just outside the village walls with an iron gate connecting it, sweet pea vines running up the trellises, over and through the white picket fence, and an herb garden surrounding a whitewashed main cottage. _Well, here goes nothing._

Hidan found a place to stand where he could see the front door, but not _too_ close, and repeated the phrase Kisame taught him.

_"Matsvakirai kuno!"_

Putting his hands on his waist impatiently, Hidan waited for the food to start flying his way. He was fucking hungry. The sound of a screen door opening and slamming shut alerted his attention to somewhere from behind the house, and he frantically patted down his hair and tried to make himself look as holy as possible.

A small woman meandered around the sidewall, as if on tiptoe, and halted at the garden gate, staring Hidan straight in the eye, a contemplative look in her gaze. She was small, he noticed, with an infuriatingly neat bun taut at the back of her head and a proud tilt to her chin. She looked like _business._

Hidan cleared his throat and tried again.

"Uh…_matsvakirai kuno!_ …Or something."

The woman's gaze suddenly filled with a furious intent, leaving Hidan feeling bewildered and slightly amused all at once. Where the hell was his food, anyway? He stiffened as the woman reached behind her and brandished, seemingly from nowhere, a long cat-o-nine-tails, which she reared back and cracked over her head. Apparently satisfied, she glanced at Hidan almost lazily, and then abruptly vaulted over the fence with her bare hands, charging at him, waving the whip around like a maniac.

Hidan started, not sure how to deal with this pixie of a woman who was running at him as if she didn't know who he was, or something. Hidan decided to stay just to see what happened, though. Kisame said the people here might do some weird stuff. Come to think of it, he'd looked a little guilty when he said it. Tobi was even quiet, staring at him like some little pumpkin-bred freak of nature with—

"_Shit!"_

Hidan never knew whips stung so badly. Now, the holy rituals he went through in the name of Jashin were filled with righteous pain and suffering. Jashin expected his followers to inflict massive damage upon both oneself and the offering, but this was an insult to the very dogma of the religion. This just _stung._ Itched, almost. The whip bit at tiny parts of his skin, and when the demon-pixie reeled it back in, she _snapped_ it back, taking with it little chunks of—

"Hey! Hey!" Hidan was running back through the path at this point, trying to gain a vantage point to ask that bitch what the fuck she was doing, but she didn't look like she planned to relent anytime soon. He sorely wished he'd have ignored Kisame and brought his scythe with him. That hooker back there would make a wonderful sacrifice. Jashin may even give her some bonuses for attempting to gloriously remove his skin from his muscle structure, however insulting it was. Jashin did approve of hardworking beginners, and this woman looked like a prime candidate.

Oh! Maybe she was a _saint,_ and this was all a _test,_ and—everything suddenly made sense to Hidan now. He looked to his left as he ran, admiring the clandestine shadows of the elm trees painting lines of bright stripes on his skin and clothes, saturating them with natural paint, washing off in an instant and coming back different every time. Huh. Maybe that Deidara guy wasn't so crazy after all, and some things were better off temporary. He'd have to ask him when he got back.

Hey, where was that whip?

Tapering his run off to a trot, Hidan looked about him with a dubious expression. The woman was just…gone. Okay, this was officially weird. Maybe he was supposed to go back or something…yeah, that sounded pretty damn good. Hidan began running back down the path. He was going to get that food if it _killed_ him.

* * *

"What's he doing, guys? What's he doing?"

"Come up and look yourself, dumbass."

"Tobi's not a dumbass! I—Tobi can't see! Get off my branch! You're hurting Tobi's foot!"

"That's what _she_ said, yeah."

"Stop it, you two. He might hear us. And then he'll probably kill us both."

"Three, yeah."

"Us three, _excuse_ me."

"Hmmph."

"He's going back!"

"What? No way."

"Kisame, you still didn't tell me what's going on!"

"Hush. He's going back? Really? That's—all right, phase two. Everyone get off the branch and down to the path. We need to station ourselves far enough so that he can see us but we can yell out an explanation before he kills us. Deidara, don't step there. No! Don't—!"

No one else was around to hear the tree branch fall, bringing with it five hundred pounds of ninja, weapons, assorted leaves and twigs, a wayward ant, and a penny dating back to the nineteenth century, which is most unfortunate, as the penny was in mint condition.

* * *

A bit more wary this time, Hidan managed to get inside the gate and all the way up to the house unscathed, with no sign or sigh of the little woman.

Glancing at his reflection in the nearest window and re-situating his appearance, he knocked three times and stepped back when the door opened to reveal the demon lady from before, minus the whip this time.

To Hidan's surprise, she broke out into a brilliant smile and grabbed his waist (she was so short it was the only thing she _could_ reach, really), pulled him into the house and slammed the door behind.

The inside of the house was sufficiently more disturbing.

The lights were off, lit candles decorated every table and cabinet, casting a voodoo-like glow about the room and leaving ghostly shadows of furniture everywhere one looked.

The woman rushed off into some unknown corner of the house, leaving Hidan perturbed and hungry in the foyer. He didn't care to bother himself with observations of his surroundings, usually, which wasn't the best habit a shinobi could have—on the other hand, he was immortal—but it looked like his arrival had been long-prepared for. Well, that was odd. Why would Kisame and them go through all the trouble just so he could get some pie or something from some random crazy lady?

Several minutes later, said person emerged from a door to the side and beckoned him to her side. Then, she spoke.

"Honored _munyai_ she murmured. "We are grateful that your friend has taken such an interest in our daughter, Sakura Haruno."

…_The fuck?_

"Please come this way. The elders are waiting to discuss the _roora_ with you. Would you like me to serve you some tea?"

Hidan hesitated, but only for a second. Okay, he could go with this. "Nah, but some sake if you have any. And…some pie. I'd like some pie."

She smiled a smile that made a shiver go up and down his spine. "Very well. I'll take your coat there, and you go on in. Your place has been prepared."

Hidan gave his cloak to the woman—What _was_ she, anyway?—and slipped into the side door, not sure what to expect.

He _really_ wanted that pie, though.

* * *


	2. The Mukwasha

**A/N:** This fic is for…..IvyAdrena! Woooo! Go read In Your Hands. It's a much better KisaSaku than this junk. Seriously.

* * *

Kisame, Tobi, and Deidara sat, slumped, in the living room, each in his unspoken assigned chair. In the air, there was a feeling of utter defeat. And also that someone had forgotten to turn the oven off.

Deidara broke the stillness first, pulling his hair out of the tie to run his hands through it, trying to remove pieces of bark, leaves, tree sap, and an extremely fatigued ant.

"Well, that sucked, yeah."

"Tobi can't feel his legs."

Kisame glared at the two from his chair, as domineering over the others in the room as President Lincoln himself.

"Quiet, you two. We need to think. Did Hidan get back to the house? Did…oh, no." Kisame slapped a hand to his forehead.

Tobi and Deidara released one another from their respective headlocks.

"What is it, yeah?"

"Is something wrong with Kisame?"

"We never were able to catch up to Hidan. That means that if he managed to get back to the cottage, then he had the meeting with the elders to specify the agreed price. Dammit. Sakura's bitch of a mother'll clean me out of everything I've got. That naïve idiot won't know a thing about pricing, and her dad and uncles don't have a clue either. The mom's running the whole thing, I just know it."

"Oh, my mother is not a bitch."

Sakura smiled as all three men's heads snapped around simultaneously. "Hey, guys!"

Kisame blinked. "Sakura. What are you doing here?"

Sakura put her hands on her hips and cocked her head, looking, essentially, like Sakura with her hands on her hips and her head tilted to the side. Kisame simply adored it. Provided it wasn't directed specifically at him, of course. That usually meant he was going to get in trouble. On the other hand, it sometimes meant she was horny. You just never knew with Sakura, he mused.

She barked out a laugh and sauntered over to Kisame's chair, sitting directly in his lap so as to have easy access to his hair, which then submitted itself to some high quality 'running your fingers through it' sort of lovely pastime.

"I just snuck back over here as soon as I heard Hidan in with my poor dad and uncles." She sighed and fell back onto Kisame's chest, which cried out in unheard joy. It was a chest, after all, and chests do not have mouths or vocal chords. They don't even have tongues. "You're right, though. My mom is running the whole thing. It's not tradition for women to take control, but she hid behind a chair and snapped at them through the whole conversation. Sorry, Kisame, but I couldn't intervene in time."

Kisame stiffened. "No."

"Yep. Looks like you're going to be in trouble. She didn't ask for money, though…"

He blinked again. "Then…what?"

The front door banged.

"God, these pies are so fucking awesome, seriously. Oh, hey, assholes. And _hello,_ my darling Sakura. You look ravishing today, as usual."

Kisame glared. "Watch it."

Hidan continued as if uninterrupted. "Could I interest you in some pie? Your mom gave me like a million of them." He held out a plate and fork in his hand and nudged a large brown bag beside him with his foot; a giant slice of rhubarb pie covered the entirety of the plate. "How about you open up and I—"

"Do it and you die."

Sighing, Sakura ran her fingers through Kisame's hair again, which was beginning to wonder if it would fall out early what with all this constant messing up, which is interesting as hair does not have the ability to reason or otherwise think whatsoever.

"Calm down, Kisame. He's only kidding." She extracted herself from Kisame's very tense bodily structure, much to his bodily structure's dismay, and calmly walked over to Hidan, who continued eating his pie fervently. Sakura squatted down and peered in the bag. "Jeeze. There has to be at least ten pies in here!"

Hidan smirked. "Uh huh. _And_ I got some free sake. That's why I don't remember…too much of…the…meeting. Wait. What time is it? I kinda fell asleep while I was there." Here he had the grace to look sheepish. "Well, fuck." He rubbed the back of his head. "I think we talked about something back there…something involving…cows?"

Deidara and Tobi exchanged worried glances for what was not the first or the last time, and Kisame and Sakura looked almost frightened. Sakura wrung her hands and spoke.

"Hidan…how _many_ cows did they talk about?"

Hidan wrinkled his brow in thought. "I…don't really know. Like, seriously. But this pie is awesome. You can have some. But only you." He released one hand from the plate, holding both plate and fork with the other, and gestured at the bag. "Just pick one out."

"Tobi wants a pie, too…"

"Fuck you."

Sakura made a 'tsk' noise at Hidan and knelt to look in the bag again. Then she saw something that had escaped her gaze before, which was very embarrassing because it was honestly right there on top where no one could possibly miss it.

It was a bright orange Post-It Note, scrawled on with her mother's sweeping, elegant penmanship, in glow-in-the-dark pink gel pen. Carefully extracting the note from the plastic cover of a key lime pie with whip cream on top, Sakura peered closer at it, which was necessary because her mother rather believed that she was an International celebrity and made really huge, annoying capital letters.

Sakura read, "'Dear Kisame, my future son-in-law.'" Everyone held their breath except for Sakura, who was reading, and Hidan, who wandered into the kitchen with the pie bag. "'I am most pleased, as your future father-in-law, that you have chosen such a fine and beautiful young woman as my Sakura to marry.' Oh, mom. Why are you doing this?" She paused.

"'For as long as I can remember, there…hmm. The rest is all smudged in. I think he was drunk when my mom made him write this last part…oh, here's more on the bottom from her." Her eyes scanned the paper and lit up when she found what she was looking for. After reading it, of course, she looked absolutely petrified. "For our daughter, we will ask for twenty cows, a golden kunai, a pregnant _goat,_ and assorted remedial herbs? What the…_Hidan!_ Hidan, get back in here!"

Hidan stuck his head in the living room door. "Yes, my lovely?"

Sakura glared at him, the bastard. "Were you even paying the least bit of attention to that meeting? Huh?"

He looked nervous and scratched his arm absentmindedly. "Well…not _really._ Hey, did you try some of this pie? It's so _good!"_

Ignoring him, she continued. "This is a fortune! You could have been paying attention! You should have! We'll never be able to get this. _Never._ Water buffalo cost _at least_ five hundred dollars _each_ as adults. Dammit!"

"Um…"

"Oh, God! A golden _kunai!_ A _golden_ kunai! As of this morning, I'll have you know, the price of gold was up to a thousand US dollars per gram! A solid gold kunai would cost _at least_ thirty thousand dollars! That's forty thousand dollars! A pregnant goat is…well, I don't really know. But these herbs could be obtained for free if we look hard enough, I suppose…"

Hidan smiled sheepishly. "So…you're not mad? Darling?"

Sakura smiled sweetly back, which was extremely disturbing. "Oh, I'm still mad at you. Seething, even." Yes, she was definitely someone to avoid while smiling. "There's no way we can get all this, Kisame and I, which is what my mother intended."

Kisame frowned but continued looking at Sakura expectantly, as though waiting for some sort of alternative Sakura had to offer. He didn't have to wait long.

"Hidan. I am so pissed at you. In fact, you'll never know how pissed I am. It just can't be put into words how pissed I am."

"…I'm sorry."

"You're not now, but you will be later."

Everyone in the entire room held their breath, even Frank, the goldfish.

"As your punishment, it will be your job to go look for…the pregnant goat. I'm pretty sure that'll be easy to find, but goats live in dirty places, and I know how much you love getting your hair dirty." She turned to Kisame, Deidara, Tobi, and the ever-elusive Kakuzu, and carried on. "As for all of you, I'm pretty sure I'll need all of your help getting this junk all together."

"Tobi will be glad to help!"

"I'm not going out looking for any cows, yeah."

Kakuzu left the room. Kisame sighed. "They'll all help, Sakura. What do we do?"

"Well, like I said, Hidan gets the pregnant goat. Kakuzu, if you'll help…"

"…I suppose I have nothing better to do."

"All right, then! Thanks, you're a sweetie." Hidan gagged. "Okay, Kakuzu gets the golden kunai, since I know he's so good about stuff like that. Money and stuff, whatever. Kisame, you get the cows. There may be a lot of them, but there are herds of formerly domestic ones living wild in the hills after that wind knocked out those farm fences. Convenient, huh? Besides, it's traditional for you to get the cows all by yourself. Tobi, you get the herbs since you were under Zetsu for so long and know about plants from him. Deidara, since you get around easiest, I'll have you just fly around and check up on everyone."

"A golden kunai? That must cost—"

"Oh! Tobi knows just where to find all the best wild herbs!"

"Sounds fine to me, yeah. I'm just not dragging some cow back here."

"Shit. A goat."

"Move out everyone!" Sakura cupped her hands to her mouth to make herself heard over the din. "We need this done as fast as possible, or my mom will call it off!"

Kisame held back after the others hauled it to the yard, which sent a pleasant tingle up Sakura's spine. She definitely knew what was coming now. Kisame waited for a sign in his courteous way, and so Sakura decided to give him an obvious one: she ran up to him, threw her arms around him, and grabbed his ass lovingly. Momentarily stunned, Kisame simply stood with his hands loosely situated on her hips. He loved it when she did this.

Both ignoring the obscene noises coming from the front window, they leaned in and kissed tenderly, almost as tender as a filet mignon.

"So," Sakura murmured against his gleeful chest, "are there any empty closets around here? We haven't done it standing up in a ridiculous amount of time."

"Indeed," Kisame answered. "There just so happens to be an empty broom closet down this way."

He took her hand and led her politely down the hall. It was important to be genial to a woman before one planned on fucking the living hell out of her against a wall, of course. Sakura grinned, entertaining similar thoughts inside her head.

The cows could wait a little.

* * *

Flight was a blessing bestowed on those who dared to reach for it, Deidara mused as he circled slowly over the half-assed crowd on the front lawn. Actually, he was just thinking about how much his ankle itched, but the first thing is certainly more poetic.

"At least I have the easiest job," he murmured to himself. "No chasing after cows for _me,_ yeah."

Hidan's head shot up. "I can hear you up there, asshole. And if I have anything to do with it, you _will_ have the hardest job! Look out for sharp, aerial projectiles while you're out being a fucking sentry, you spineless dick!"

Deidara smiled genially and waved down at the red-faced, raging, murderous psychopath down below. For the record, said crazy person is also very good-looking.

"It's also nice that, what with all the wind, I can't hear what the hell anyone is _saying_ from up here, yeah. Wish it wouldn't make my hair so shitty-looking."

So, unfortunately, Deidara completely missed the rest of Hidan's rant, which detailed the sorrows and woes of where the fuck to find a pregnant goat and why the hell he couldn't look for cows. Tobi, on the other hand, was very willing to lend a sympathetic ear. That or he fell asleep behind his mask. You never could tell with him.

Deidara was much less sympathetic than Tobi, though, and so immediately turned the bird around and headed towards the nearest city. Sakura was the only one who he was sure would be monitoring his duty as a sentry, and since she and Kisame were rather occupied in a closet at the moment, there would be plenty of time to go to town and get a bit to eat. Nodding sagely at the wisdom of his plans, he reached into his Akatsuki cloak and swiftly pulled out a small, plastic container.

He hoped there would also be plenty of time to eat this pie as well, though he felt slightly guilty.

It wasn't like it was _stealing_ or anything, if you thought about it. No one was guarding it, and no one's name was on it. Therefore, it was totally legal. Normally he wouldn't care, of course, but Sakura had a mind to convert them all to benevolent, gracious, old-lady-helping citizens from the day she met them, and so he acquiesced. For Kisame's sake. The guy was as henpecked as they came.

Twenty minutes, seven seconds, and fifteen nanoseconds later, Deidara landed in the back alleyway of the cutest damn teashop you have ever seen. There were paintings of _kittens_ in the thing, for God's sake. Deidara felt a tingle go down his spine as he crossed the lavender and rose petal threshold, as though his masculinity was being stripped away from his very being while each step took him closer to his favorite table.

There was a reason why he risked everything by coming in here, by being subject to old women coming up behind him and pinching his sweet ass every time he got up to leave.

It was the ice cream.

The ice cream was a special sort, they said the first time they had offered it to him out on the street, a recipe that traveled hundreds of miles to get to their kitchen. Deidara missed the rest of the lady's lecture on the history and culture of Italian desserts while he was choking down the plate of wonderful, soft, creamy, pink cold stuff. Damn good, it was.

Smiling that sort of smile that people can only really smile when they think about their first time eating ice cream, Deidara stretched out his legs and put his arms behind his head, and waited.

It didn't take long before the squeals came, and then a stampede of elderly women in old-fashioned kimono. Retired geishas trying to make a living, they told him before. That made this even better, Deidara thought while being spoon-fed ten brand new samples of the ice cream. One of the women took the tie out of his hair and began to softly brush out his luscious, golden, manly locks. Oh, he'd never hear the end of it if one of the guys walked in here. Was it _truly_ worth it?

Yes, it was, he mused as he pushed unidentified hands away from the fly on his pants for the fifth time. If only to escape that horrid, draconian atmosphere back home. This marriage business was a bunch of crap. If you got married, when would you ever get the opportunity to have ten ex-geisha feel you up?

When Deidara closed his eyes, he imagined them in their prime, smooth, white skin and elaborate hairstyles typical of geisha in their youthful years. He vaguely wondered, drifting slowly off to sleep, if they could hook him up with a geisha who would even consider allowing him to be her patron. It was a nice thing to think about, impossible though it might be.

The door to the teashop opened, brushing against the shop bell and a jaunty ring reverberated throughout the room. Deidara felt a pair of hands leave his right thigh, where they had previously been occupied in some very much welcome massage therapy.

"Oh, Lord Kazekage!" The woman gushed. "How nice to see you here! And you brought your siblings with you as well, how lovely. And is that _Baki_ I see back there? Baki, you're getting foxier by the minute! Come on in, you four!"

Deidara's stomach sank all the way to somewhere in the southeastern Atlantic ocean as he felt not-so-welcome familiar chakra spreading all around them. The door was on the other side of the shop, though, and behind a row of large flower arrangements, so maybe they hadn't seen him yet…

"Oh, come over here and sit with us and Mr. Deidara here, won't you? I'll go get you all some cake. You must be exhausted!"

_Shit._

* * *

Hidan, meanwhile, trudged down the path to insanity, which, ironically, happened to be the path to the nearest farmstead. Might as well try to get this done as quickly as possible. How hard was it to find a pregnant goat, anyway?

He sighed.

Then he scratched his head.

Then he sighed again and looked back up at the sky.

Oh, yes, this was so enthralling, walking on a path to nowhere. There wasn't even fucking _vegetation_ to look at. Just wide open, boring tundra with a wolf on it.

And there went the wolf.

Wait. Was that a goat over there?

"Ha!" He threw a fist in the air triumphantly and ran majestically across the wide open space, feeling free as a duck. Then the goat randomly changed into a wolf and started charging at him, which set things back a little on the duck issue.

"Shitshitshitshitshit—augh!" Trying to run frantically in a long cloak was extremely difficult, Hidan decided. Even with no vegetation to lose footing on, there was still the hem of the damn thing, which insisted on getting in his fucking way.

Agonizing, patronizing, mesmerizing seconds later, he threw himself across the fence posts panting, too lazy to go any further. If the wolf wanted to come and tear him apart now, well, then what the damn hell. Having a rotund goat bleat right next to his ear and walk calmly through a break in the decaying poles was excruciatingly more torturous to Hidan's current mental state, however.

"The…hell?" Hidan set his mouth in a grim line, which would normally look quite austere and macho on his sexy, manly face, but only exceeded in looking silly since his face was getting covered in goat spit at that particular moment.

Okay. So first it was a goat—he was _sure_ it was—and then it was a raging, homicidal wolf, and then it was a goat again.

…Wasn't it?

Suddenly suspicious of this ungulate, gray and dirty-white creature, Hidan scooted away from the unwanted facial contact and reached out a suspicious hand filled with suspicious chakra. He brushed a hand against the goat, not too surprised when the goat disappeared in a poof of white smoke with a sassy 'maaaah.'

He stood up, a calmly calculative façade overtaking his chagrin. Someone was after him. But who? There were certainly many people who would have him dead, but—?

"I hope you realize that was the _least_ you deserved."

Hidan spun around, somewhat startled, but didn't really get a much better feeling in his gut as a languid Kisame leaning on the fence met his eyes. Something about his posture was more dangerous than what met the eye, though. _Shit._

"Hey…" Hidan smiled jovially, trying vainly to ease what he could feel coming. "Kisame. Buddy. You're not pissed that I became slightly inebriated at the little party your lovely fiancé's mother threw for me, huh? I mean, I'm sure you think the rooree or whatever it was called was a tad high, but what's money, eh? Money isn't worth shit between friends."

He smiled, and Kisame smiled back, grinning. "So, uh…what was with that goat-wolf thing back there?"

Kisame laughed uproariously and put an arm around Hidan's shoulders. "I was just messing with your head. Sakura was the one who showed me how to create illusions like that to freak people out in battle. Apparently she made tons of little fake ramen bowls for Naruto when he caught her in a bad mood."

Hidan chuckled nervously behind clenched teeth. Something was off about this situation; he just couldn't put his grass-stained finger on it. Oh, well. Might as well finish off the total pacification of Kisame Hoshigaki.

"Seriously, man. Anyway, what say we head on down to the nearest town and have some sake on me? Come on, it'll be a mini bachelor's party, only with no hookers. So whaddaya say?"

Kisame's smile hardened and his eyes turned steely, the air abruptly swirling with unrestrained chakra, pulsating, alluding murderous intent.

"All I have to say," Kisame growled out menacingly as his arm whipped around Hidan's neck to form a fully functional choke hold, "is that I am damned happy there is no chance of accidentally killing you."

Hidan let out a muffled emission of surprise from behind Kisame's tense form.

He found it increasingly difficult to verbally express any thoughts or concerns whatsoever shortly afterward, however, _and_ for the next few weeks, as his voice box went missing in a sudden, scar-you-for-life event that he never _did_ have the heart tell anyone about.

* * *


	3. The Roora

**A/N:** Gaara and Deidara are so totally BFF.

* * *

"So then the frog says, 'That's not a horse, that's a pickle!'"

Uproarious laughter reverberated throughout the teahouse, accompanied by Deidara's nervous chuckle. He stiffly sat back in his chair, quite disturbed when Temari gave him a sultry stare. Didn't that woman swear to rip his throat out not so long ago? And what was with her brother?

Yes, he was asleep on the table, but hadn't he promised vengeance for his brother's death? That reminded him. The Kazekage.

Slowly turning his head, Deidara glanced at the man to his right, who currently had an arm slung over his shoulders, the other arm occupied with heartily punching Deidara's bicep. Gaara beamed and held up a glass of sake while Temari and Baki did the same. Kankuro snored.

"A toast!" Gaara slurred. "To the man who changed our lives!"

The three drank while the old women cheered from within the kitchen. Deidara stared at his own sake. Maybe it was poisoned…

Gaara slapped Deidara on the back. "So we're best friends now, right?"

Blink. "Uh…sure, yeah."

"And best friends do stuff together, right?"

"I…suppose they do."

"Well, let's _do_ something!"

Deidara coughed and tried to cover his shock while simultaneously planning the best routes of escape. "So…what were you planning on doing, um, Kazekage?"

"Gaara, it's Gaara, Fred."

"…Deidara."

"Whatever, man. Whatever."

Another round of sake was passed around, and this time Baki drifted off to join Kankuro. Thank the powers that be for sleepy drunks.

So now, all that was left was an overly friendly Gaara and a seductive Temari. Oh, joy. _I've got to get out of here, yeah._

Carefully extracting himself from the booth, Deidara stood and bowed slightly to the four.

"It was…nice talking to you, I guess…" He trailed off, deciding it wasn't really helping things to stand there and find something more eloquent to say. Two seconds later and he was out the door, panting, looking a lot like a very relieved man, which he certainly was.

And then it happened.

"Ah! My fleeting rival from days gone by! But there seems to be something wrong? Could it be that you are no longer in the springtime of your youth? Alas!"

Well, not anymore.

_Shit._

Gai sauntered over to the door of the teahouse and snatched Deidara up into an enormous bear hug.

"Ever since we thought you died, I was distraught," Gai wept.

Deidara felt slightly sick. This man was a total crackhead, no doubt about it.

"Oh…really?"

_Why me? Why today? Why? WHY?_

Shaking the poor blond back and forth, Gai dealt out his sobbing reply. "I just felt some sort of—of connection with you, one that I rarely find in a man. I…need you. Especially now, my friend."

Frozen with mortification and a fear for his masculinity, Deidara went through his list of options in his head. C-4 or C-3? Hmmm…

"I need a man like you…to shop for green jumpsuits with me." Deidara went limp. Dear, sweet God. That was even _worse._

Shaking himself off the…was he even _human?_ Anyhow, finding himself free of a disturbingly strong grip, Deidara prepared to dash away, only to have his cloak caught in the back by Gai's monstrous hand. The man beamed, blinding everyone in the whole town with his radiant, Colgate smile.

"Now, now, my friend," he reasoned with a squirming Deidara. "We'll run laps _after_ we shop. No sense getting all sweaty and then going in to try on all those nice, clean clothes."

He threw Deidara, who had given up at this point, over his youthful shoulder and skipped into the nearest mini-mall.

* * *

Kakuzu plucked the golden kunai out of the garbage can behind the Akatsuki base.

"Well, that was easy."

* * *

Meanwhile, Tobi sat cross-legged in a vast field of clover, making flower necklaces. Currently he was on his nine hundredth one.

Much to his pleasure, he had found all the correct herbs in one place, right in the field where he found all the clover surrounding it. With the herbs arranged in neat piles beside him, there wasn't much else to do but—

"Hey! You, there!"

Tobi looked up, startled. A strange red-haired man and a blonde girl were slowly moving his way, dragging two ungainly lumps behind them. Recognizing the redhead and his sister with a jolt of apprehension, he grabbed the herbs and darted off, only to have his leg grabbed by an arm of sand.

The two approached him and stared down at his prone frame silently. Tobi held his breath, waiting for Gaara to crush him with a wide assortment of tiny rock fragments. Maybe even some fossilized seashell if he was lucky. Seashells were awesome.

He didn't expect the sand to form a chair for him to sit in. And he certainly didn't expect Gaara and Temari to use Baki and Kankuro as alternative chairs to sit in. And he really didn't expect them to start plucking clovers up from the ground and braid them into bracelets and rings and necklaces and crowns.

Sighing, he resumed his own chain of flowers. What the hell. Just—what the hell.

"So…" Gaara drawled. "You're in the Akatsuki."

"Yes, Tobi is. And Tobi likes it."

"Tobi?" Temari questioned.

"That's right, miss."

"…You're _hot."_

"Um…thank you."

"Take off the mask."

"Tobi doesn't want to."

"Take it off! How else can we make out?"

"Temari!" Gaara thundered, then turned to Tobi, who was clutching his clover crown for dear life. "I'm very sorry. She's still drunk from earlier."

"I—Tobi sees. That's too bad, sir."

"Call me Fred."

"Okay, Fred."

Temari kicked Kankuro for snoring. A bird flew by Gaara's head. Somewhere off in the distance, a dog barked. The three sat and weaved.

Suddenly, like most of the things that seemed to happen recently, a figure came running towards the group from off in the distance. A few seconds later he stood before them, hand on hip, the other hand gripping his sword and holding the weapon menacingly before them.

"Sasuke?" Temari peered up at the man, but it was kind of hard since the sun was in her eyes.

"That's right," the man replied. "I'm here to finish what I started."

Gaara and Tobi tensed. Temari swayed. Baki mumbled something about border protection.

"And…what would that entail?" Gaara responded cautiously.

Sasuke raised his sword and pointed it at Tobi, who readied a kunai under his cloak.

"It's around here somewhere." Sasuke abruptly dropped to his knees and began rooting through the clover patch; Gaara, Tobi, and Temari watched curiously.

"Here it is!" Sasuke broke out into a brilliant grin and motioned for Temari to scoot over on Baki. Sasuke took a seat on the sleeping man, brandishing the end of a chain of clovers. He looked at the surprised expressions of the group, then at his flowers in hand.

"Oh! Well, you see," Sasuke explained, "I was out looking for Itachi when I came across this clover patch. The flowers were so damn pretty I just _had_ to stop and pick some. Then I got an idea, and I started to tie them together. I count them as I go. I still stop here pretty often to tie more on when I'm not off killing innocent children or raping married women. Hey, could you hand me that one over there with the long stem?"

Tobi blinked, then released the kunai and plucked the flower from its home near his booted feet and handed it to the strange man. Sasuke accepted it with a smile. A very sadistic, perverted, gleeful, enigmatic, happy-sad sort of smile.

"Thanks. So anyway, you guys wanna help?"

Temari and Gaara beamed. "Sure! We'd love to help," Temari gushed.

"…Okay," Tobi mumbled.

Several hours and fifty feet of flower chain later and Tobi was at the end of his emotional rope. I mean, it just wasn't enough that the Sand trio (and some other weird guy with them) and Sasuke had to drop out of the oblivion onto his peaceful afternoon, but Kimimaro and Haku just had to come along as well, didn't they?

He turned to Sasuke, who was occupied with showing Haku how to apply the correct amount of pressure to the flower stem in the last stage of attachment. Not enough pressure and it would fall apart, too much and it would break.

"Sasuke."

"Yeah, Tobi?"

"Do you know who I am?"

"Tobi…Akatsuki Tobi?"

"No, no…who I _really_ am."

"Yeah, I know."

"You…do?"

"You're Madara Uchiha. Itachi told me all about it."

"And…you're not mad?"

"Nah. I already revived the clan anyways. And it's seventy-five percent better than before! A soda fountain in _every_ hallway."

Tobi fell silent. Why was everyone insane these days? Including himself. I mean, half the time he was a spazzed-out kid and the rest of the time, he was an ancient megalomaniac with weird hair and a fetish for vulpine quadrupeds. Truth was, Tobi really didn't know _who_ he was these days.

He looked down at his flower chain, which Sasuke promptly snatched and demonstrated to Kimimaro how one went about attaching two longer strands together.

Oh, to hell with it.

* * *

"Well, we're screwed," Sakura sighed mournfully, clinging to Kisame's arm like a barnacle. "No one is doing their job right except for Kakuzu, and I'm sure he's planning to go out and sell it. You know how he is."

"It'll be all right," Kisame consoled the annoying woman, caressing her hair like a rock that a barnacle attaches itself to. Sakura scowled and punched his arm.

"It won't either! My mom _knew_ this would happen!"

"What a bitch."

"Tell me about it. And watch your mouth. Only I'm allowed to swear around here."

Kisame huffed. "So what do you want to do?"

"You know what we should do," Sakura murmured sneakily, "is what we should've done all along."

Kisame's eyes widened. "Do you mean—?"

"I do."

"Where?"

"Nicaragua."

And so they went.

* * *

Miles away, Hidan was hard at work trying to find a pregnant goat, but so far the only thing he'd managed to find at all was a swarm of vacationing killer bees, a herd of angry water buffalo, and an anaconda.

"This is a bunch of shit," he muttered. "Killer bees aren't even native to this damn country. Damn bees."

Walking with all of your limbs spread out as wide as they could go was a difficult manner in which to get places, but at least the pain of even the slightest movement was somewhat dulled.

"When I find that stupid goat and get back to the damn house, Sakura will take care of all of it. She'd better, anyways. I'm starting to think there won't even be a wedding after all and this is a big fucking joke to us so they can have some time alone at the house to screw each other's brains out."

Little did Hidan know, but Kisame and Sakura were currently doing that very thing.

"You know what? I don't care. I just don't care anymore. I don't fucking _care."_

He walked to the nearest town and into a clothing mall. After all of that walking and searching and getting mortally wounded, his clothes tended to get a bit ratty.

"Hmm…Abercrombie...Charlotte Russe…Lacoste…Zara...wait, what's _that_ place?"

The store in question was painted shamrock green on the outside, and everywhere you looked inside had _something_ green on it. Even the hangers were a lovely pastel spring green.

"Fuck. What's this, the fucking leprechaun store? Hey, lady!" Hidan waved his arms and shouted at the women at the counter (who had green hair and was wearing a green thong), since actually walking in the store would taint His Holiness with the sheer tackiness of the outlet.

The woman started and glanced up at the haggard man. "…Yes, how can I help you?"

"What kind of store is this? Are you people—AUGH! AUGH! OH, SWEET JASHIN, MY _EYES!"_

There was Deidara and that fucking Leaf shinobi Gai at the checkout counter, peering out at Hidan with confused looks on their faces.

And they were both wearing jumpsuits.

_Green_ jumpsuits.

Dear _God._

Hidan continued screaming bloody murder, too absorbed in the act to notice when Gai and Deidara walked up to him to pat him lovingly on the back.

"It's okay, yeah. They're actually more comfortable than they look, okay?"

"My youthful friend is right, _yeah._ He has awakened the feeling of true and eternal youthfulness in his body and he has been reborn into a wave of new and exciting fashion! _Yeah!"_

"Oh, my fucking God. You two are _the_ most fucked-up crackheads in the whole damn world. I—don't _touch_ me, you heathens!"

Deidara and Gai smiled at one another, unperturbed at the Jashinist's raucous display, as Deidara had already told his best friend Gai all about 'that damn Hidan who was not nearly as youthful as he should be but a good companion in a weird sort of way.'

They picked Hidan up, an arm to each green-clad man, and dragged Hidan screaming into the store, where they forced him into the tightest green jumpsuit in humanity.

The girls went wild.

Hidan cried.

* * *

In the end, only Kisame and Sakura got what they wanted, which was each other. They moved to Nicaragua within the week and got a bungalow on a private island where they raise cows and goats. They have a hammock and a lookout tower, just in case Sakura's mom is ever on the prowl.

As for Deidara, Gai, and Hidan, they broke off from their respective affiliations to form an entirely new shinobi group notorious for their speeches on youth and religious demonstrations, the Youthfully Artful Green Jashin Worshippers. Their services can be attended on Monday and Thursday from nine to eleven pm in front of Charlotte Russe and Zara, and all new converts receive a green Speedo as a door prize. Also some hair mousse.

Kakuzu ended up selling the golden kunai about ten seconds after he found it to a traveling caravan of one hundred fifty three gypsy girls. A few days back, they informed him, a group of shinobi had attacked their caravan and had taken all the men as slaves. Extremely moved by the girls' situation, Kakuzu offered to come along with the caravan on its way to Romania and to this day he still leads the whole bunch. He currently has one hundred fifty two children with one on the way.

Tobi ended up making the longest flower chain in the whole world, and the money he and his entourage received from the Guinness Book of World Records was used towards the creation of a new shinobi nation, Country of the Flower Children. Their main exports are flower-based, and all of their imports are organic and approved by the Animal Protection Society and the Environmental Protection Society. Several years after becoming the leader of this prosperous country, Tobi wed one Ino Yamanaka in the spring, when the Scarlet Pimpernels and the Common Mallows were blooming beautifully in the greenhouse.

Itachi was never seen again, but on nights when the wind is still and the moon is full, you can hear a lone voice screaming out Linkin Park's "Numb" in the dark, perfectly in tune. Sometimes you can hear a second voice doing the backup that sounds suspiciously like an entirely different Uchiha, but only on nights when the Flower Children are on holiday.

* * *


End file.
